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"She" is engaging actress and surprisingly competent singer Zooey Deschanel; "Him" is cool troubadour M. Ward, who produces, arranges, and plays guitar, adding Beatles, Phil Spector, and country touches to her likable pop tunes. And both seem to be having a blast acting out their fantasies, which makes Volume One consistent fun.

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This Philly quartet's third album clumsily aspires to create a postapocalyptic Frank Zappa circus -- and singer Honus Honus, once content to roar in a scraped Tom Waits growl, now slouches into a testy whine.

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In the same way that Lily Allen's career is inextricably tied to her MySpace page, and OK Go's profile was boosted by YouTube, Minneapolis quartet Tapes 'n Tapes owe much of their success to MP3 blog aggregators Elbo.ws and the Hype Machine, sites that documented their buzz in real time by giving greater exposure to the online music community's rapidly expanding long tail.

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Without Bjorn and John -- his bandmates in the Swedish indie-pop trio responsible for last year's inescapable "Young Folks" -- Peter Morén sounds like a charter member of producer Jon Brion's brainy L.A.

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The Ruby Suns' ringleader, Ryan McPhun, is an expat in more ways than one. Not only did the guy ditch California for New Zealand, he's also shaken off the shackles of traditional songwriting: Sea Lion's ten genre-spanning tracks run from percolating synth pop ("Morning Sun") to crunchy granola sing-alongs ("Adventure Tour") to ramshackle Brian Wilson tributes ("There Are Birds").

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Though Destroyer's Dan Bejar is probably best known as a part-time New Pornographer, his self-reflexive lyrics, epic song lengths, and taste for musical melodrama suggest someone who sees himself in rather grandiose terms. On Destroyer's eighth album, Bejar lives up to his stratospheric self-regard. Gloriously guitar-spangled, word-addled glam jams "My Favorite Year" and "Rivers" rock like T.